Tuesday 12th April 2011

And so this is the modern way?

Here I am sitting in a soul-less hotel in Warrington. The hotel sits in the middle of a business park set between the M62 and M60. Not that there is anything wrong with the hotel, the place, the room, the food. Just soul-less.
The taxi driver who dropped me off said that this is a twenty minute walk from 'normal' life and a proper pub with prober beer and food.

I could have called for a taxi, went into town, found a pub showing the football, drunk a few beers and had a great night. It would have cosy the best part of £50, possibly more, and I have to be up at the crack of parrows tomorrow to head to the airport as I'm off to Denamrk for more lectures and another hotel.

I came up yesterday on the train, an hour and seven minutes into London, a ten minute walk along Euston Road, and an hour and forty minutes non-stop to Warrington, and I was here.

Warrington looks fine; a normal run of the mill, er, mill town, lots of back to backs, shops, chippys, pubs you know, the usual. And then there is Birchwood Park. Where I am now.
This is where head office is, my first trip here. Its a modern glass and steel box, all very functional, and not bad. I am here to give a lecture, three power point presentations and answer questions.
That done, more meetings with my boss, answer mails and back here.



For £14.95 a night you get on-demand moveis, family and adult, unlimited internet, but no sports. And the restaurant manager won't hear of football being on whilst people are eating. What is this, the bloody Ritz?

So, instead of getting a taxing, raiding the cash machine, I let the company pick up the cost of the internet and listen to the commentary on Talk Sport. The main reason for getting the internet was so that I could carry on working, but the connection could not stand a VPN connection and took up the whole bandwidth and I gave up.

So, after a bland dinner of pork and leek pie with a free pint of beer, I made my way back to my room to watch the boy racers speed past with techno housey house music blazing away on their Blaupunkts.

Its the modern way.

See you in Denmark.